Until recently, it has been the general practice in the construction of buses and other transit vehicles, to build them piece-by-piece, wherein a skeleton framework, usually referred to as a "bird-cage," is erected on a vehicle floor structure, after which the vehicle side walls and roof are completed, and then the interior of the vehicle is finished by workers therein, passing the necessary material, such as liners, doors, windows, fixtures, seats, paints, carpeting, etc., in through the door and window openings of the vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,827,137 to T. C. Schubach, assigned to the assignee of the present invention, discloses and claims a method of manufacturing a transit vehicle by completing, in individual jigs, sub-assemblies of a transit vehicle, including a floor assembly, side wall assemblies, roof assembly, and front end assembly, and then assembling these completed sub-assemblies to provide a substantially completed vehicle.
The present invention is based on that general concept, but goes beyond it in providing a trackway on each of selected ones of the sub-assemblies, and in employing a traveling collector, having a plurality of conveyor ways therein, with each of which a trackway of one of the selected sub-assemblies is adapted to be aligned. The conveyor ways are so located and adjusted that the selected sub-assemblies are conveyed therealong from their respective jigs into the collector, and into positions of final assembly with each other, where they are secured.